Based on the true story of one of the most intriguing
unsolved crimes in history, Zodiac tells the story of a serial
killer who terrifies the San Fransisco Bay Area and taunts
police with his ciphers and letters as investigators in four
jurisdictions search for the murderer. The case will become
an obsession for four men as their lives and careers are built
and destroyed by the endless trail of clues.

Movie
Review:

The serial killer film has become such an exploited
cliché that one approaches such things with caution.
However, Zodiac director David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club)
has not only brought a fresh look to the genre, he’s
reinvented himself in the process, demanding a thinking audience.

Zodiac
chronicles one of the most imfamous serial killers and unsolved
cases of the late 60's and early 70's. It wasn't all peace
and love in San Fransico. In 1969 the San Fransico Chronicle
gets the first of many letters from someone claiming that
he's murdered two kids on lovers lane and that he did the
same thing about 6 months before. He continually taunts the
paper and the police in a series of letters and cyphers that
he sends out. A young politcal cartoonist takes an interest
in the case, but the interest eventually leads him to an obession
over it. And tracking an elusive serial killer turns into
a risky game. Being incredibly absorbing procedural, a chronicle
of an investigation that took three steps backward for every
one step forward. With the apt tagline of "There's more
than one way to lose your life to a killer," this film
isn't so much about the Zodiac himself as it is about how
the men tasked with hunting him down became lost in a sea
of obsession in the process.

The
film follows three men in their pursuit of leads and clues
that don’t add up; as each of them gets more intense,
or more resigned to their failures, their professional and
personal lives begin to unravel. Zodiac is about the process
of pursuit, not the soap opera lives of its protagonists,
or even the criminals they pursue. And in keeping with the
spirit of a film, Fincher has chucked every stylistic twitch
or cinematic habit he’s ever shown to date and with
a remarkably specific look and feel to make not a film set
in the 1970s but a film wholly of the 1970s. Based on Robert
Graysmith’s book, the film features Jake Gyllenhaal
as the author, who was a cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle
during the time of the Zodiac. Graysmith plays a secondary
role through most of the movie, which focuses on the detectives
investigating the case and the newspaper’s role in making
it a media spectacle.

Director
David Fincher captures the feeling of a city on the edge,
held virtually hostage by a single lunatic who claims murders
he may not have committed, sends cryptic puzzles, and succeeds
in messing with the minds of those trying to find him. Fincher's
style is simple, but it contains a number of memorable shots
(especially a fantastic shot of a fog-covered Golden Gate
Bridge and the bird's-eye view cab tracking shot) and, most
crucially, maintains an aura of suspense and dread, chillingly
turning ordinary streets and sunny parks into the Zodiac's
homicidal playgrounds. From its lack of deep focus lensing
and elaborate tracking shots to the subtle shifts of wardrobe
and makeup to the very geography of San Francisco, Fincher
achieves a miracle in not calling one iota of attention to
his accomplishment. What he wants to do instead is bring viewers
along with the characters as they butt heads and hit brick
walls of progress; as Robert Graysmith descends even deeper
into his obsessions (losing his job and his family in the
process), we become even more attached to his goal - not to
see the Zodiac brought to justice but to look him in the eye,
knowing who he was, and letting the Zodiac know that he knows.

James
Vanderbilt's script follows a similar approach; the story
itself seems uneventful, but the mounting number of obstacles
that pop up during the hunt for the Zodiac build up more than
enough tension to enrapture the viewer. With the lack of technological
advancement back we fully take granted of today, we feel the
frustration and difuculty of organizing a police case back
then. Rarely before has a film that seems to have little actually
happening come across as so thrilling and engaging, as the
viewer's emotional investment in the characters and their
situation is well rewarded with a number of scenes that will
put you on the edge of your seat through the most subtle of
ways.

Zodiac's
atmosphere is heightened by the terrific ensemble cast. Gyllenhaal
gives a convincing performance as Graysmith, a slightly nerdy
puzzlehound who, in the film's final act, finds himself as
the only one dedicated enough to really sink into weeding
out the Zodiac's identity. Ruffalo also delivers possibly
his finest performance yet as the determined Toschi, feeling
his pain when he comes so close to landing some evidence on
his Zodiac suspects, only to have some force sweep it all
under the rug.

A
number of other familiar faces pop up in brief but memorable
roles, including Brian Cox, as a lawyer whose aid is seeked
by the Zodiac, and Charles Fleischer, whose relatively brief
apperance as a suspect is the most chilling in the entire
film. And of course Robert Downey Jr. who does a fine work
as the Chronicle's boozing star reporter. Even though the
script doesn't allow his side story to become as fleshed-out
a part of the madness running rampant, it grants other characters
to shine through making the power of the ensemble evenly weighed.

2002’s
Panic Room and Zodiac is the absolute opposite of that exercise
in stylistic tension - this time around, substance trumps
style and the hounds just outside the door are our own trepidations,
our fears of the unknown that lurks in a dark heart.